Knowledge Update

London, April 29 (IANS) When medication is used to shut off the oxygen supply to tumours, the cells adapt their metabolism in the medium term -- by switching over to producing energy without oxygen, new research has found.

Medicines can initially slow or even stop tumour growth. However, as the treatment goes on, the tumours begin to develop resistance to these therapies -- and they start to grow again.

The new findings, reported in the journal Cell Reports, could be used for treatments that can inhibit tumour growth in the long term.

Today, it is common knowledge that the disease develops in a series of stages. One of these stages, tumor angiogenesis, involves the formation of new blood vessels to supply oxygen and nutrients to the growing tumour.

Now, the research team has shown that, although the latest medications are effective at preventing blood vessel formation, the tumours can continue growing even without a supply of new blood vessels.

Analysis of this finding from a biochemical and molecular genetic perspective revealed that the tumour cells convert to a different type of metabolism. They no longer produce energy using oxygen delivered via the blood vessels -- but instead switch over to glycolysis, a form of anaerobic energy production. 

The lactic acid formed as a result is delivered to cells that are still receiving sufficient oxygen and that can use the lactic acid, together with the oxygen, to produce energy.

The research group also showed that this specific mode of metabolism -- and therefore the tumour's growth -- can be interrupted, namely by inhibiting anaerobic energy production or transport of the lactic acid. 

"Our findings open up new approaches for the optimisation of anti-angiogenic therapies and for inhibiting tumor growth effectively in the long term," said lead researcher Gerhard Christofori, professor at University of Basel in Switzerland.​

​London, April 29 (IANS) The very oldest pieces of rock on Earth -- zircon crystals -- are likely to have formed in the craters left by violent asteroid impacts that peppered our nascent planet rather than via plate tectonics as previously believed, researchers report.

The tiny crystals probably formed in huge impact craters not long after Earth formed, some four billion years ago.

Rocks that formed over the course of Earth's history allow geologists to infer things such as when water first appeared on the planet, how our climate has varied, and even where life came from.

Ten years ago, a team of researchers in the US argued that the ancient zircon crystals probably formed when tectonic plates moving around on the Earth's surface collided with each other in a similar fashion to the disruption taking place in the Andes Mountains today.

However, current evidence suggests that plate tectonics -- as we know it today -- was not occurring on the early Earth.

So, the question remained: Where did the crystals come from?

Recently, geologists suggested these grains may have formed in huge impact craters produced as chunks of rock from space, up to several km in diameter, slammed into a young Earth.

To test this idea, researchers from Trinity College Dublin decided to study a much younger impact crater to see if zircon crystals similar to the very old ones could possibly have formed in these violent settings.

With the support of the Irish Reseach Council (IRC) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the team collected thousands of zircons from the Sudbury impact crater in Ontario, Canada.

After analysing these crystals at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, they discovered that the crystal compositions were indistinguishable from the ancient set.

“What we found was quite surprising. Many people thought the very ancient zircon crystals couldn't have formed in impact craters, but we now know they could have,” said Gavin Kenny from Trinity's school of natural sciences in a paper published in the journal Geology.

“There's a lot we still don't fully understand about these little guys but it looks like we may now be able to form a more coherent story of Earth's early years,” he added.

Kenny recently presented the findings at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Houston, Texas.​

Washington, April 29 (IANS) Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other optical telescopes, astronomers have developed a powerful new method for investigating dark energy - the mysterious energy that is currently driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.

The technique takes advantage of the observation that the outer reaches of galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity, show similarity in their X-ray emission profiles and sizes.

More massive clusters are simply scaled up versions of less massive ones.

“In this sense, galaxy clusters are like 'Russian dolls', with smaller ones having a similar shape to the larger ones,” said Andrea Morandi from University of Alabama in Huntsville.

“Knowing this lets us compare them and accurately determine their distances across billions of light years,” he added.

By using these galaxy clusters as distance markers, astronomers can measure how quickly the universe was expanding at different times since the Big Bang.

According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the rate of expansion is determined by the properties of dark energy plus the amount of matter in the Universe, where the latter is mostly made up of unseen material called dark matter.

The latest results confirm earlier studies that the properties of dark energy have not changed over billions of years.

They also support the idea that dark energy is best explained by the “cosmological constant,” which Einstein first proposed and is equivalent to the energy of empty space.

“Although we’ve looked hard at other explanations, it still appears that dark energy behaves just like Einstein's cosmological constant,” added study co-author Ming Sun.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers studied 320 galaxy clusters with distances from Earth that ranged from about 760 million light years to about 8.7 billion light years.

“We think this new technique has the ability to provide a big leap forward in our understanding of dark energy,” the authors noted in a paper appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal.​

​New York, April 29 (IANS) Tiny doses of a cancer drug may stop the raging, uncontrollable immune response to infection that leads to sepsis, say researchers.

A small dose of topoisomerase I (Top 1) inhibitor can dampen an acute inflammatory reaction to infection while still allowing the body's protective defense to take place, showed the findings published in the journal Science.

The treatment may help control not only sepsis but also new and brutal assaults on human immunity such as novel influenza strains and pandemics of Ebola and other singular infections, said the study's senior investigator, Ivan Marazzi, assistant professor at Icahn School of medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Sepsis -- deadly infections often acquired in hospital by patients with a weak immune system -- is caused by an excessive host response to infection, which in turn leads to multiple organ failure and death. 

The team found that use of one to three doses of a Top 1 inhibitor that is one fiftieth the strength of normal chemotherapy was enough to rescue 70-90 percent of mice from an inflammatory storm death due to either acute bacterial infection, liver failure, or virus-bacteria co-infection. 

The treatment did not produce overt side effects.

They also tested the inhibitor in cells infected with influenza, Ebola, and other viral and bacterial microbes that over-stimulate the immune system, and found the drug blunted a dangerous immune reaction.

"Our results suggest that a therapy based on Top 1 inhibition could save millions of people affected by sepsis, pandemics, and many congenital deficiencies associated with acute inflammatory episodes -- what is known as a cytokine, or inflammatory, storm," Marazzi said.

"These storms occur because the body does not know how to adjust the appropriate level of inflammation that is good enough to suppress an infection but doesn't harm the body itself," he said. 

"This drug appears to offer that life-saving correction," Marazzi explained​

​New York, April 27 (IANS) Old age brings with it many health problems including the loss of vision, hearing and taste, and a new study says that the ability to smell the food through the mouth decreases with age.

Human beings not only pick up aromas through the nose, but also through the mouth while chewing the food. Retronasal smell, which is smelling from behind the nose comes into play when food is chewed and volatile molecules are released in the process.

These then drift through the mouth to the back of the nose where the odour is detected.

But, unfortunately, for some, this ability decreases with age, said Tyler Flaherty from Oregon State University in the US.

This might be, among other reasons, because of the prolonged use of medication or physical and mental changes associated with older age, the researchers noted in the study published in the journal Chemosensory Perception. 

One's ability to pick up smells through the mouth could also be influenced by, for instance, the use of dentures.

The results revealed that many of the older participants found it difficult to pick out specific odours.

However, younger participants fared better when individual smells where presented to them in combination with other tastes.

"Generally, large individual differences in odour responsiveness become even greater when ageing is considered as a factor," Flaherty said.

The team studied how people experience odours via their mouths, and whether age or gender has an influence on it. 

They included 102 non-smoking healthy people between the ages of 18 and 72 years old participants in the study.

The researchers then rated how intensely they pick up on two tastes (sweet and salty) and four odours (strawberry, vanilla, chicken and soy sauce) put to them. 

Participants were also exposed to these in combinations that go well together, such as sweet and vanilla, or salty and chicken.

Significantly, only three percent of the participants had trouble picking up any traces of the sweet or salty tastes, whereas up to 23 percent of them found it difficult to detect some of the sampled odours.

​New York, April 28 (IANS) A single antibody infusion can protect monkeys against infection with an HIV-like virus for up to 23 weeks, researchers have found.

The findings suggest that using infusion of broadly neutralising antibodies (bNAbs) as a prevention strategy potentially could protect people at high risk for HIV transmission. 

The study, published in the journal Nature, was led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US National Institutes of Health, and The Rockefeller University in New York.

In the study, the researchers rectally exposed macaques to weekly low doses of simian human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV), which contains components of HIV and a related monkey virus. 

On average, it took three weeks for detectable levels of virus to appear in the blood of untreated animals.

To investigate whether bNAb infusion could offer long-term protection against SHIV infection, the scientists gave single infusions of one of three individual bNAbs against HIV to three groups of six macaques, then exposed the animals weekly to low doses of SHIV. 

In all cases, the bNAb infusions delayed the acquisition of SHIV, with the longest period of protection lasting 23 weeks. 

The researchers found that the duration of protection depended on the antibody's potency and half-life - a measure of the antibody's lifespan in the blood and tissues.

Enrollment for the first of two planned human clinical trials assessing one of three individual bNAbs infusions for preventing HIV infection has already begun, the study pointed out.​

London, April 27 (IANS) Researchers have found that tablet computers loaded with literacy applications could improve the reading preparedness of young children living in economically disadvantaged communities.

The results of first three trials of the study were presented recently at the Association for Computing Machinery's Learning at Scale conference in Britain.

In all three cases, study participants' performance on standardised tests of reading preparedness indicated that the tablet use was effective.

The trials examined a range of educational environments. One was set in a pair of rural Ethiopian villages with no schools and no written culture; one was set in a suburban South African school with a student-to-teacher ratio of 60 to one; and one was set in a rural US school with predominantly low-income students.

In the African deployments, students who used the tablets fared much better on the tests than those who did not, and in the US deployment, the students' scores improved dramatically after four months of using the tablets.

"The whole premise of our project is to harness the best science and innovation to bring education to the world's most underresourced children," said study first author Cynthia Breazeal, associate professor of media arts and sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

The experiments consisted of an inexpensive tablet computer using Google's Android operating system. 

The researchers also developed their own interface for the tablets, which grants users access only to approved educational apps. Across the three deployments, the tablets were issued to children ranging in age from four to 11.

"When we do these deployments, we purposely don't tell the kids how to use the tablets or instruct them about any of the content," Breazeal said. ​

​London, April 27 (IANS) Danish researchers have developed a novel genetic method that could lead to the development of safe and effective vaccines for controlling diseases such as cancer, asthma, and allergies.

"The major research breakthrough is that we have created a general and user-friendly platform for the development of a special type of effective and safe vaccines,” said one of the researchers Adam Sander from University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

"The highly effective method opens a new door for controlling diseases such as cancer, asthma, allergies and cardiovascular diseases by means of vaccines,” Sander pointed out.

The method was described in the Journal of Nanobiotechnology.

The idea behind the new technique is to mimic the structure of a virus. When you have made the virus structure, it is used as a platform onto which are glued harmless parts of the disease which you want to vaccinate against. 

This creates an overall virus-like structure, which constitutes an important danger signal for the body. The immune system would therefore produce antibodies against the disease -- a mechanism which has been difficult to activate by traditional vaccines.

The technology is also so effective that it can trick the immune system into attacking the body's own cells, which may be used in the treatment of a number of serious diseases, such as cancer, which are not caused by foreign organisms, the study said.

"Previously, it was a major problem to activate the immune system and get an adequate response. We have lacked the possibility to easily create a vaccine which mimics something that will trigger a natural response from the body, but the new virus-like platform now allows us to do so,” Susan Thrane from University of Copenhagen noted.

"In other words, we now have a unique technique that enables us to develop vaccines against diseases that we have so far been unable to fight," Thrane pointed out.

"It will be a game changer for low-income countries, which can now make vaccines targeted at widespread diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria. There is no doubt that the new results will have a significant impact on tomorrow's vaccines and public health," Ali Salanti, professor at University of Copenhagen, said.​

​New York, April 25 (IANS) Children exposed to chemicals used in liquid laundry detergent packets may have serious health effects such as breathing problems, heart problems, and even death, warns a study.

The study, published online in the journal Pediatrics, found that from January 2013 to December 2014 poison control centres in the US received 62,254 calls related to laundry and dishwasher detergent exposures among children younger than six years old.

Incidents related to laundry detergent packets saw the biggest rise -- increasing 17 percent over the two-year study period.

Poison control centres in the US received more than 30 calls a day about children who had been exposed to a laundry detergent packet, which is about one call every 45 minutes.

At least one child a day was admitted to the hospital due to a laundry detergent packet exposure.

In addition, the study also saw two child deaths which were associated with exposure to liquid laundry detergent packets.

"Many families don't realise how toxic these highly concentrated laundry detergent packets are," noted study co-author Marcel Casavant, chief of toxicology at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, US.

To curb incidents related to laundry detergent packets exposure, ASTM International -- a standards organisation that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for various products, published a voluntary standard safety specification for liquid laundry packets in 2015.

But, according to some experts, the report is ineffective or not substantial enough to reduce unintentional exposures to the contents of laundry detergent packets.

"This voluntary standard is a good first step, but it needs to be strengthened," one of the researchers Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio said.

"Unless this unacceptably high number of exposures declines dramatically, manufacturers need to continue to find ways to make this product and it's packaging safer for children," Smith suggested.

Experts recommend that families with children younger than six-years old should use traditional detergent, which is much less toxic than laundry detergent packets, as well as store all laundry detergents up, away, and out of sight of the kids.

"Use traditional laundry detergent when you have young kids in your home. It isn't worth the risk when there is a safer and effective alternative available," Casavant pointed out.​

​Geneva, April 25 (IANS) As many as 21 countries, including six in the African region and four of India's neighbours -- Bhutan, China, Nepal and Malaysia, could be free of malaria by 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated in a report published on Monday to mark World Malaria Day.

One of the goals of WHO's 2016-2030 programme against malaria is to eliminate the disease in at least 10 countries by 2020.

To meet this target, a country must achieve at least one year of zero indigenous cases by 2020. 

"The 'Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016-2030', approved by the World Health Assembly in 2015, calls for the elimination of local transmission of malaria in at least 10 countries by 2020,” the Geneva-based organisation said in a statement.

"WHO estimates that 21 countries are in a position to achieve this goal, including six countries in the African Region, where the burden of the disease is heaviest,” the statement added.

"Our report shines a spotlight on countries that are well on their way to eliminating malaria,” said Pedro Alonso, director, WHO Global Malaria Programme. 

According to the WHO analysis presented in the report, these 21 countries are: Algeria, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Cabo Verde, China, Comoros, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Paraguay, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Suriname, Swaziland and Timor-Leste.

"WHO commends these countries while also highlighting the urgent need for greater investment in settings with high rates of malaria transmission, particularly in Africa. Saving lives must be our first priority,” Alonso noted.

Since the year 2000, malaria mortality rates have declined by 60 percent globally, the report pointed out.

But reaching the next level -- elimination -- will not be easy, it added.

Nearly half of the world’s population, 3.2 billion people, remain at risk of malaria. Last year alone, 214 million new cases of the disease were reported in 95 countries and more than 400 000 people died of malaria, the report said

To make the world free of the disease, “new technologies must go hand in hand with strong political and financial commitment,” Alonso added.

Reaching the goals of the “Global Technical Strategy” will require a steep increase in global and domestic funding from $2.5 billion today to an estimated $8.7 billion annually by 2030, the report noted.​